Before long it might be time to change your license plate from "RKY" to "VET"!

I still have too much to learn yet to be considered a vet but maybe apprentice.

I don't know ... You sure go the hang of that new cooker in a hurry!

There isn't much to get used to. Like Noah told me as long as you follow the techniques that he shows in the videos you wont have any trouble. We shall see in a couple weeks because I think I am going to hold the butts until it gets a little colder out because I want to see how good this does with the cold Indiana weather.

I have done butts on my offset right before thanksgiving and had 38 degrees with 40 MPH wind across the firebox and had nothing but trouble. Being the company is based out of Denver they should be pretty good in winter. The way the vent is set up and the way I have the barrel sitting there is no way that there should be would have to be a wind coming out of the north blowing south to hit the vent and cause problems.

I ain't gonna lie. I shed a tear on my first cook. Turns out I made three mistakes and it was cooking way hotter than it should have been. The ribs were so overcooked that two of my baby back racks fell off the hook into the fire. On the bright side, they were salvaged. And they were delicious. But they were fall-off-the-bone tender (or pull-the-bone-out tender) and that's not really what we're looking for. Interestingly enough, my son and my neighbor said they prefer them this way, so it was a good day afterall! Threw not one rib in the trash.

That chicken and ribs looks awesome BaasPro. I am planning on doing ribs this weekend however since I got "Barry" my poor flatbed feels abused so "Freenie" is going to get some use this weekend. I am determined that since my first time doing ribs on the flatbed grill was not a good experiment, I have not done ribs on it until I got the barrel. Since then I have learned so much plus with the KCBS comp (Going to help on a couple more this year) I did I am determined I will get good ribs out of Freenie.

I have done 2-7 pound brisket flats and a 14 pound packer brisket as well as 2 pork butts on the barrel and all 3 came out awesome. I think I am burned out on pork butt so it just didnt suit my taste buds so I ended taking all I had left to an office pitch in before christmas break and everybody in the office loved it and ate an entire crock pot full. We had around 15-20 people in that day and that is all I heard all day was how good it smelled and everybody complimented me on how great it tasted. The entire office smelled like BBQ. PitBarrelCooker has a cover for the grills now so I bought one of them and I will get the barrel cleaned out this weekend and put the new cover on it and have it ready for next time.

I ain't gonna lie. I shed a tear on my first cook. Turns out I made three mistakes and it was cooking way hotter than it should have been.

What did you do to get it burning too hot?

What was the 3 mistakes?

With mine I load the charcoal basket full then add 1 chimney of lit charcoal on top using no lighter fluid at all then throw a couple chunks of apple or cherry wood on top. I have not had any trouble with meat coming off the hooks. From looking at the pics it looks like you may have hooked that one on the thin end instead of the meaty end and you are supposed to have the hook under the 2nd bone from the end. I did 2.5 racks my first day with the grill and did not lose anything. Even the 14# packer held on like a trooper and the end of it was laying right on top of the coals but never burned.

With mine I load the charcoal basket full then add 1 chimney of lit charcoal on top using no lighter fluid at all then throw a couple chunks of apple or cherry wood on top. I have not had any trouble with meat coming off the hooks. From looking at the pics it looks like you may have hooked that one on the thin end instead of the meaty end and you are supposed to have the hook under the 2nd bone from the end. I did 2.5 racks my first day with the grill and did not lose anything. Even the 14# packer held on like a trooper and the end of it was laying right on top of the coals but never burned.

I did hook them under the second bone on the meaty end (where the ribs are shorter but there's more meat). The three mistakes were:1) I didn't have the right number of coals in the chimney. Amber swears you should use exactly 40 briquettes. Worked better when I did!2) I left the coals in the chimney for 30 minutes instead of 15 before adding them to the basket.3) After adding them to the basket I left the lid off for awhile while I finished preparing the ribs.

So, on my second cook I corrected those mistakes -- exactly 40 briquettes were in the chimney for exactly 15 minutes and the lid was put on as soon as I added the lit coals to the basket and hung the meat. It worked better a lot better that time, as the ambient temp was 50-75 degrees lower than the first time. No wonder the first ribs were overcooked!

With mine I load the charcoal basket full then add 1 chimney of lit charcoal on top using no lighter fluid at all then throw a couple chunks of apple or cherry wood on top. I have not had any trouble with meat coming off the hooks. From looking at the pics it looks like you may have hooked that one on the thin end instead of the meaty end and you are supposed to have the hook under the 2nd bone from the end. I did 2.5 racks my first day with the grill and did not lose anything. Even the 14# packer held on like a trooper and the end of it was laying right on top of the coals but never burned.

I did hook them under the second bone on the meaty end (where the ribs are shorter but there's more meat). The three mistakes were:1) I didn't have the right number of coals in the chimney. Amber swears you should use exactly 40 briquettes. Worked better when I did!2) I left the coals in the chimney for 30 minutes instead of 15 before adding them to the basket.3) After adding them to the basket I left the lid off for awhile while I finished preparing the ribs.

So, on my second cook I corrected those mistakes -- exactly 40 briquettes were in the chimney for exactly 15 minutes and the lid was put on as soon as I added the lit coals to the basket and hung the meat. It worked better a lot better that time, as the ambient temp was 50-75 degrees lower than the first time. No wonder the first ribs were overcooked!

I had never heard the add only 40 briquettes to the chimney piece, how much are you adding to the basket before adding the burning 40 on top?

I usually fill the charcoal basket to the top heaping then fill the chimney up to the top and light it until I see flames and a cherry red glow which is usually longer than 15 minutes then dump the chimney and usually have some flaming runovers because the basket is too full. I then add some wood chunks on top of all that which is probably waaaayyyy too much fuel. I know Noah always shows on his videos when lighting off with charcoal fluid to light the basket and wait 20 minutes with the lid off then start cooking but I will not use lighter fluid in my grill. Using the idea of filling the basket and doing the full chimney I am actually wasting a lot of charcoal because my longest cook on the barrel has only been 3-3.5 hours and that was my 14# packer. I hung it for 90 minutes and thermapen'd it at 150 at the hooks and 145 at the flat by the charcoal basket. After that I pulled it and wrapped it and cooked on the rack for another 90 minutes and the temp was 210 across the whole brisket. One day I even did 2- 8.5# (17# total) Pork butts and only cooked total 3 hours and temp came out at 200 and temperature outside that day was around 13 degrees (was doing cold weather test). Normally on my CharBroil offset 2 8 pound pork butts would be cooking for 9-10 hours and still struggle to even hit 175 internal but that was before I found out how beneficial wrapping in foil actually helps.

I know I checked the barrel some 9 hours after I had finished cooking ribs (Which also were overcooked but a tasty first attempt) on my very first run back in October and at that point the lid and everything was very warm to the touch but not so hot you couldn't grab it without a glove. At that point I still had cherry hot coals and the internal temp was still hot enough I could have cooked another brisket or more ribs no problem. I need to figure out how much charcoal I actually need to sustain about 5 hours of cook time instead of wasting half a bag of charcoal and only use the barrel for 4 hours and still have it burning since there is no way to snub it out to use again once it is lit minion method style. I may email Noah and ask him that question.

I wonder how long I would get if I actually fill the basket with coal not completely heaping then take the 40 out of the basket itself to chimney then add my wood chunks on top of the unlit coals before dumping the burning 40 back on top of the basket. Personally I dont think I am getting enough smoke there even though I am getting maybe an 1/8" pink smoke ring but the wife would say it is too much smoke but you cant always please them all. You got me thinking now which is a good thing because isnt that what we are all here for anyways but to learn from our mistakes or deviations and maybe learn some new trips or ideas to try to see if we can improve on our own techniques?